Sailing day finds the wireless operator early at his post. Long before the passengers come aboard and commence to search for their staterooms, the wireless booth is a center of activity. The machinery is carefully overhauled, supplies are looked to, and a number of test messages are sent out. The operators do not call up any one in particular at this time, but depend upon the sharp crack of the sending apparatus to tell them if everything is working properly. Every detail of the apparatus is examined, including, of course, the aérials strung from the topmasts. The tests are made fully three hours before sailing, when the operators are free until the boat leaves, almost the only carefree interval they will have until the steamer is docked on the other side of the Atlantic.
The first regular wireless message is sent out as the steamer slowly backs from her pier. It is timed just five minutes after sailing. The sharp crack of the sending apparatus is usually drowned by the roar of the whistle calling for a clear passage in midstream. All transatlantic steamers send to the wireless station at Sea Gate, while the coastwise steamers call up the station on top of one of the skyscrapers on lower Broadway. This is merely a formal message, but no wireless log would be complete without it. This first message is known as the “T R,” no one seems to know just why. The wireless station replies as briefly as possible, and the wireless operator shuts off.
BOY AMATEURS WITH WIRELESS OUTFITS. BOYS FREQUENTLY CATCH WIRELESS MESSAGES FROM OCEAN LINERS.
Business soon picks up. Before the passengers are through waving farewells, some one has usually remembered a forgotten errand ashore, or decided to send a wireless (aërogram is the
